I don't see myself using these death runes for anything else than death strike. Honestly, death syphon doesn't heal for much, and it doesn't proc the blood shield.

In the current Death Strike, Rune Strike incarnation you are 100% right. However I was theorizing about if DS is gonna use RP, and RS frost/unholy runes, then you can use the death runes from rites of blood on either 1) bloodboil/heartstrike/dnd for threat 2) death siphon for extra mitigation ON TOP of death striking from RP

I really think switching Death Strike and Rune Strike resources, and some small fixes to smooth things out is the way to disentangle the threat/mitigation problem.

Firstly, considering other classes have to choose between different types of mitigation (Shield Block vs Shield Barrier, Savage Defense vs Frenzied Regeneration, SoR vs WoG/EFlame, Guard vs Purifying Bew), I don't see it as unreasonable for DKs to have this choice.

You're forgetting that paladins and warriors still have a base shield block regardless of whether they use SoR or shield block, druids have a high dodge chance whether they use frenzied regen or savage defense, and monks have a high parry chance as well as the ability to stagger damage and then can get rid of the dot with brew at the cost of only ONE chi. Blood death knights on the other hand are the only tanking class who rely solely on their pure active mitigation to keep them alive that being said, if you limit their ability to use said active mitigation you gimp their survivability. This is the very reason why DRW costs rp instead of runes in the first place therefore, if you switch death strike to be the rp dump you would have to switch the cost of DRW to a runic cost to correlate.

Yeah, basically there won't be any situation where you'll have frost or unholy orphan runes, unless you spam icy touch or something.

The only case where only 5 charges of blood tap could be useful is when you pull, because DnD costs an unholy rune. But the chances for you to be able to land 3 rune strikes to build 6 charges (90 runic power) in 8 sec is a little low. At the moment you'll have enough charges, you probably won't need to refresh that rune anymore.

Current beta BT is clearly out of the way.

Originally Posted by yehyehyehyeh

In the current Death Strike, Rune Strike incarnation you are 100% right. However I was theorizing about if DS is gonna use RP, and RS frost/unholy runes, then you can use the death runes from rites of blood on either 1) bloodboil/heartstrike/dnd for threat 2) death siphon for extra mitigation ON TOP of death striking from RP

I really think switching Death Strike and Rune Strike resources, and some small fixes to smooth things out is the way to disentangle the threat/mitigation problem.

In the current Death Strike, Rune Strike incarnation you are 100% right. However I was theorizing about if DS is gonna use RP, and RS frost/unholy runes, then you can use the death runes from rites of blood on either 1) bloodboil/heartstrike/dnd for threat 2) death siphon for extra mitigation ON TOP of death striking from RP

I really think switching Death Strike and Rune Strike resources, and some small fixes to smooth things out is the way to disentangle the threat/mitigation problem.

I could definitely see this being a viable option, of course then we would need the 'new death strike' to cost 20 rp instead of 30 rp like the current form of rune strike so we can properly pool our death strikes for moments of high damage.

I could definitely see this being a viable option, of course then we would need the 'new death strike' to cost 20 rp instead of 30 rp like the current form of rune strike so we can properly pool our death strikes for moments of high damage.

1. BT is broken and thereby already unbalanced in regards to RE and RC so not worth mentioning.

2. Blood already faces an abysmal downtime at 34% which is a 20% increase from live that being said, I fail to see how letting us reduce our downtime by way of more death strikes under the produced rp-based death strike model would unbalance a thing.

3. So what if we gain a few more RC procs? (And let's face it, if death strike were to cost rp instead of runes every blood dk would take RC to add more synergy to their threat rotation.) So we do a tiny bit more dps and tps would that be the end of the world and completely break the game? Not really and to be honest we NEED the ability to gain more threat resources so we can better handle mobs that have 5 or more.

3. So what if we gain a few more RC procs? (And let's face it, if death strike were to cost rp instead of runes every blood dk would take RC to add more synergy to their threat rotation.) So we do a tiny bit more dps and tps would that be the end of the world and completely break the game? Not really and to be honest we NEED the ability to gain more threat resources so we can better handle mobs that have 5 or more.

If really needed the increased of RC/BT/RE procs could be corrected easily by slightly changing the base increased rune generation from Improved Blood Presence (20% to 15% whatever dunno).

---------- Post added 2012-07-27 at 03:54 PM ----------

Now to get Blizzard to read this intelligent discussion somehow. Anyone knows what would be the best place to post to hope they erad it somehow?

I've tried my hand at blood tanking on the ptr since the DC problem is fixed and ... even without addons to track my runes and stuff, i've nowhere near the 30ish % downtime i've seen being discused in here.
I have maybe a couple GCDs empty every 20 or so seconds, tops.

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?" — Mark Twain

I've tried my hand at blood tanking on the ptr since the DC problem is fixed and ... even without addons to track my runes and stuff, i've nowhere near the 30ish % downtime i've seen being discused in here.
I have maybe a couple GCDs empty every 20 or so seconds, tops.

The ptr and beta are two different games entirely. The downtime is on the BETA build not the ptr build that being said, perhaps you are playing the updated build on the ptr whereas we are still playing the old build on the beta.

Hmm then I would question what exactly Ayashi considers "trying their hand at blood tanking" because the thousands of blood dks like myself who have and are continuing to raise the issue of excessive downtime certainly are not imagining the lengthy gaps of empty gcds we are experiencing at times.

---------- Post added 2012-07-27 at 05:27 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Asheriah

From the newest patch notes :

lol. This is almost funny.

Also, rune strike got buffed a bit.

If by funny you mean a slap in the face to blood aoe threat then yeah it's hilarious :P

I thought the threat modifier went away in Cata, when they also removed the threat modifier from Rune Strike. Think it's just a tooltip fix. Dunno if this is an accurate statement, but I know I stopped using DND when cata arrived. I think that was mainly because the damage was so high from regular mobs that survival was more important, and I didn't want to break CC.

The more of my behavior you accept, the less you will have to forgive.